Kevin Love - Miami Ground Machine

[The Oi]

So among all the wild swings here...

Is there room for someone who can both think that Love has been a disappointment in his first two months, and also still believe that he is an elite player who will get back to that level sooner than later?


And to break that down further, understand that 50% of Love's disappointing season is his own slumpiness, and 50% the inability of his coach and teammates to help him play his game?

I've watched Kevin Love a decent amount over the last three years, and a LOT last year. This is not Kevin Love that we have been seeing. Well, we have seen that version of him in 1st quarters a decent amount. But the rest? That is not the Kevin Love of the last 5+ years, and I refuse to believe that a guy just suddenly becomes un-elite, just forgets everything about what makes him great.

And it's not like he requires some super specific set up to operate. He's had dozens of teammates, multiple coaches, has played with ball dominant wings, has played with pass first PG's, has played with bullnosed defensive centers, has played with soft defensive centers, and he has succeeded consistently. Sure some situations he is even better in (like when he has a rim protector next to him vs not), but all in all, it's not like you pull him out of Minnesota and suddenly he's worthless.

This team has a lot of problems. Chemistry, injuries, roster makeup, and time being the four main ones. The injuries are finally about to clear for now, and time fixes itself. And finally, the roster is looking more like one that makes sense. So until we can see this team operating at its proper chemistry and until Love can work through whatever is giving him the yips the last 8 weeks or so, you'll never ever find me on the "Love is a bust" wagon.

Your face is a wild swing.

 

[theSTEREO.]

Your face is a wild swing.

 

[NasstyNate]

Love will be fine. He is still learning his role within the offense, which, even though Bosh was castigated endlessly here for (correctly) stating, takes time to learn. It was foolish to expect that he would seamlessly transition into a third option, and those that are making final pronouncements 35 games into the season will also look foolish in time.

Our perimeter players/ballhandlers (Kyrie & Dion mainly) haven't played with a player skilled in the post their entire careers. It is part of the reason why Bynum was such a disaster last year. To expect our team to suddenly know how to play with such a player immediately is to expect too much. Going from creating offense entirely from the perimeter via iso/P&R to an inside-out/outside-in approach is difficult because it asks our guards to change how they were taught to play their entire careers.

I think Dion really hurt Love's acclimation. Conversely, I think Kyrie is smart and talented enough to learn to play with someone like Love. While he already does look to get Love involved in the 1st quarter, Kyrie no longer has to compete with Dion for shots in the 2nd and beyond, opening up plays for Love. JR/Shump will space the floor much better and will give both Kyrie and Love a little more room to operate. I expect Love's efficiency and Kyrie's assists to creep up as the season progresses.

Now how about rebounding? For those who are disappointed that we are not doing better as a team, Love is not the reason. In fact, he is still an elite rebounder and by far the best on the team. Among bigs who have played 400+ minutes, he is 11th overall in DRB%, and 3rd overall for forwards. (I use DRB% because teams place different priorities on offensive rebounding and some offensive systems draw bigs away from the boards. I think ORBs are a vastly overrated stat). AV is 54th and TT is 89th. I'll say it again - AV is overrated and TT is terrible. If Lebron is healthy and gets off his ass when he comes back, the team will greatly improve its rebounding.

Defense is another matter, but we did not bring Love in for his defense. Mozgov will help immeasurably because of AV and TT's complete inability to rotate or offer weakside help. While Love will never become a plus defender, I do not expect him to look completely lost all game like he does now as long as he can shut off the baseline and force players into Mozgov. Same with Shump's perimeter D hopefully preventing players getting to Love in the first place.

So in short, in an area where he is not dependent on teammates (rebounding,) Love is still elite. Further, the loss of Dion and the addition of Mozgov/Shump will help a great deal on both offense and defense.

 

[Cavatt]

@nastynate

That is pretty creative that Love is helping us rebound considering we were better last year and Tristan and Andy's rebounds have gone down this year. Your stats saying Andy and Tristan are bad Rebounder's are very impressive.

We would have been getting those rebounds with or without him.

 

[The Red Viper]

Many are saying he is playing with some sort of injury. Do you all reckon a week or so rest like would help him, like it did with LeBron? Obviously, Love doesn't have the same luxury as LeBron since he has yet to play in post season but was wondering how many of you think he would be better with a week or so rest?

 

[JFT]

No I dont because stats in basketball are more misleading than they are in any other sport. Anyone who watches the game can see hes not impacting the game. The box score, the true shooting stats, the career stats, all dont reflect what type of player you. Love is a stat filler who rarely makes an impact on the game. The Wolves were a talented team, and Love had the 3rd best PER in the league and yet they dont even sniff the playoffs. Do the math.

So, I thought this idea that stats are for fools was somehow off so I went back and re-watched the game from last night. I followed Love the entire game and he covered Moteijunas the entire time and vice versa. Love clearly defended Moteijunas well and shut him down nearly the entire game. 10pts/2reb/1ass. KL ended up at 17/16/4. No comparison stats, or otherwise. He played good D.

What I did see though is that the Cavs weak side defense is completely non-existent. Rockets dominated us in the paint. No surprise since we have no real center....until tomorrow.

I predict that these thread rants about KLove being a defensive "charmin" will implode once we get a true starting center. KL is simply average on D. Everyone new that going into all this. What we didn't know is that we would be w/o a real center....until now. Can't wait for tomorrow.

 

[Birdy89]

One other thing I should have mentioned since this is the Kevin Love thread and thus we will constantly hear about Andrew Wiggins.

From that 82games site.

Kevin Love Simple Rating = +5.1
Andrew Wiggins Simple Rating = -2.8

Wiggins is an excellent talent. But he has a long, long ways to go in order to reach Love's level. He may get there one day, but my concern is that day could come too late for LeBron and a potential Cavs title window.

Timberwolves information
http://www.82games.com/1415/1415MIN.HTM

Wiggins Production own = 11.9
Wiggins Production opponent = 15.0
Wiggins net Production = -3.1

Cavs information
http://www.82games.com/1415/1415CLE.HTM

Love Production own = 20.6
Love Production opponent = 18.0
Love net Production = +2.6

Love net Production differential over Wiggins = +5.7

So if you think Love is getting beaten by his opponents (which the stats on that site say is false), think about how our team would look right now with Wiggins on it instead of Love.

Wiggins is coming on faster than a speeding bullet right now.

I have seen a few of these posts that lean pretty heavily on his slow rookie start to make him look like a scrub.

Anyone paying attention has seen him grow by leaps and bounds already from where he started the year.

For a 19 year old to be able to make that kind of adjustment in season as a rookie and play the way he has the past few weeks is in a different category of special.

If Wiggins keeps improving at the rate he has this season people are going to puke realizing we are stuck paying Love like 4-5x more per year than Wiggins over the next 5 years when Wiggins is already looking like he's not far away.

I was posting elsewhere at the time, but I was in the camp that though a cheap $7 million a year type Pau Gasol and Wiggins would have far more impact than just 1 Kevin Love.

I tried a test post here to see if I was still on ignore (and I was) saying that Wiggins is going to be just like Drummond by the end of the year leaving people scratching their heads how there could have ever been so much doubt.

Look at all the moves we had to make just to make Love not a massive liability out there, much less a star. Yet we are going to back up the Brinks truck to the guy for a 9 figure deal like he is a true max star. It's mind boggling.

Max guys don't need to bring in a Mozgov to save his ass because the opposing team is literally running train on him every night by treating him like the prison yard punk. It was shameful last night the way he let the Rockets players punk him like he's a 12th man scrub. He should have laid someone out and let the league know he's no mark.

 

[ice cream man]

I'm sick of people bringing up Wiggins. Woulda coulda shoulda, it's a waste of time at this point. Of course Wiggins is gonna average 20ppg...getting all those minutes on a shit team. His weaknesses would obviously be exposed on our team. Love will be more useful to us this year, next year, and the year after.

And so even if we keep Wiggins and our big rotation is Andy/TT and...Bennett?
It may not look like it every night but Love can flat out ball on the offensive end. Pretty much always makes the right basketball play too.

We've never had a big that can score like Love. We've never had a legit center since Z. I'm hopeful that our guys will eventually learn how to play together at both ends.

 

[TwoPistols]

Look at all the moves we had to make just to make Love not a massive liability out there, much less a star. Yet we are going to back up the Brinks truck to the guy for a 9 figure deal like he is a true max star. It's mind boggling.

Max guys don't need to bring in a Mozgov to save his ass because the opposing team is literally running train on him every night by treating him like the prison yard punk. It was shameful last night the way he let the Rockets players punk him like he's a 12th man scrub. He should have laid someone out and let the league know he's no mark.

Excuses on excuses for Love. Fact is he is playing like crap and a player who is supposedly this good shouldn't need all the excuses.

 

[MirORich]

We needed a true center on this team because we did not have a true center on this team.

Regardless of your opinion of Love, the above is an undeniable fact.

And can we lose the constant references to "running a train on someone"

That is a phrase that refers to an awful act that happens to people in the real world. Surely we have more creative ways to express our thoughts and agendas. Does it make you feel clever because you think you've come up with a secret or funny way to say "the opposing team is literally raping him every night"

 

[Mr. Orange]

Max guys don't need to bring in a Mozgov to save his ass because the opposing team is literally running train on him every night by treating him like the prison yard punk. It was shameful last night the way he let the Rockets players punk him like he's a 12th man scrub. He should have laid someone out and let the league know he's no mark.

literally?

 

[TitleTown]

Nope.

I know, because applauding someone who suggests we use more data and statistics (rather than pure conjecture), is just a bad idea. Right?

 

[cavsfever]

I don't know how to disagree with this. The rebounding is the most mind boggling to me. He doesn't seem to add any rebounding. Everyone thought we would be killing teams on the boards. We aren't, even when Andy was healthy we weren't. Our team rebounding regressed this year adding "the best in the game".

I had heard he let's the guy put the shot up so he can rebound it. I am starting to believe it. I just expected a lot of extra possessions, but he really just took Andy and Tristan's rebounds. Tristan can hardly get a defensive rebound while Love is in there.

So far I have seen nothing to change my mind that he is a stat stuffer. He really hasn't dominated a game, and he has been so terrible in the clutch I am seeing a future where Tristan and Mozgov finish games in the playoffs for us.

Yeah I didn't expect this at all. I thought our team rebounding would be fantastic, but he seems better at taking rebounds from other people on his team than taking them from the other side. I don't think it's all his fault -- he tries hard, but he's just vertically challenged in every way. Too damn small and he can't jump. Hoping that playing next to a seven footer will be transformative for him by pulling off the other teams biggest player, but we'll see.

 

[LeShaq]

Of course Wiggins is gonna average 20ppg...getting all those minutes on a shit team. His weaknesses would obviously be exposed on our team.

At Wiggins' current points per shot output, he would need to average 22.8 field goal attempts per game in order to score 20 points per game.

Kobe Bryant and Russell Westbrook are tied for the league lead at 20.8 field goal attempts per game.

So, at the current rate it does not appear as though Wiggins will average 20 points per game as a rookie, even on a team that is currently in the midst of a 13 game losing streak and residing comfortably at the bottom of the West.

I do agree with you though that Wiggins' weaknesses would be more clear on our team.

Out of 444 players who ESPN has ranked on their real plus minus statistic, Wiggins is 413th. Not only has his value been negligible this season, it's been negative.

That would likely be even more evident on a team like ours which has much higher expectations than the Timberwolves have this year.

For comparison's sake in that same statistic, Love is ranked 75th in the NBA and his number is a positive one.

 

[Cashius X]

I do not like Kevin Love.